


Degrees of Separation

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Law & Order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-17
Updated: 2006-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elliot Stabler spends most of his life keeping things in check.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Degrees of Separation

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to fairy_tale_echo for major hand-holding and beta'ing this story.
> 
> Written for octopussy

 

 

Kathy was home early. Her car was in the driveway and the school had called an hour ago to tell him that his kids were sitting alone on the curb, waiting. Elliot slammed up the front steps, calling her name, a pink backpack dangling from the fingers of his left hand, his gun already in his right. This wasn't like her. The twins were in the back of the car, kicking the seats, and he had too many crime scene photos in his head for this shit.

Kathy was curled up in the middle of their bed, over the covers, her shoes still on, her cheeks black from smeared mascara. She didn't move when he opened the door, didn't move when he said her name. Just her eyes, tracking up, dead when they met his.

"Kathy," he breathed, sinking to his knees at the side of the bed, before her. "The twins..."

She pushed herself up hard and he felt the quick stinging slap of her hand across his cheek. "Get the hell away from me."

He scrabbled back. "Kath?"

"Get the hell away from me," she repeated, her voice rising with every word, her eyes wide and blazing as she sat up. "You son of a bitch."

"What the hell's wrong?"

She tilted her head and he felt his stomach clench in answer to that look on her face, the look she had whenever she was about to get sarcastic and loud. "What, did you think I wasn't gonna find out? Midnight calls, wet hair, nights when you don't even fucking bother to come home anymore?" She shook her head. "I can't believe you."

Elliot felt the backpack drop from his fingers. "Look, I don't know, what you're thinking..."

"I'm thinking that I want you out," she said, and scrubbed an abused tissue under her eyes before pushing herself to her feet. "I'm going to start dinner," she said, and shoved past him, and he stood with his eyes closed, his face gone white.

The door creaked back but he didn't hear her move any further, and he turned, his head hung.

"And to think," she said softly, and paused, and the house was so still he could hear his heart beating, "all this time, I thought it would be Olivia."

\--

Cassidy was in black leather when he showed up, the collar pulled up, its point brushing his smooth jaw. He still looked like a child, almost too much like a child. Stabler's shoulders were already bent, his head hanging loose in front of them, and he bowed when he caught the familiar profile, following that diluted gust of bone-chilling wind.

Even the pros had left. That made Cassidy smile.

The bartender curved his lip up when Cassidy slid onto the stool beside Stabler's. "Get him out of here," he advised. "He's loud."

Stabler gave the bartender the kind of stare that usually made pedophiles' lower lips start to tremble. "Am _not_ ," he said, his voice rising. "Give me a fucking double."

"Where's your bag," Cassidy said, leaning in. His fingers lay loose on the bar, empty. No keys.

Stabler twisted the glass in his hand. "My car." He snorted. "Least she let me take _that_."

The bartender shook his head at Cassidy, who raised his arm, only making a loose fist at the last second before hitting Stabler on the back. "Come on," he said. "I think you've done about all the damage you can do."

They had never met so close, not in the entire time, not in seven years. He had to have stopped at the first bar he saw. Despite the pain in Stabler's voice, the raw anguish, the red line of his underlids, Cassidy was held spellbound by it, by him.

"Where," Stabler muttered, shoving off the barstool, almost weaving where he stood, punch-drunk and bleary-eyed.

"Somewhere you can sleep," Cassidy replied.

Stabler glared at him, but followed him out to the car anyway.

\--

"She'll never let me be around Dickie again."

Cassidy pounded the button a few more times before the final screen appeared, then tossed the controller next to him on the couch. Elliot's chin was lined in day-old stubble, and despite his appearance in the bar, he still hadn't reached the golden state. Which was disappointing, but Cassidy had an unopened bottle of scotch for just this occasion.

"Yes, she will."

"She won't." He had the dogged persistence of a drunk, that exhausted monotone, and his eyes were glazed, staring. "She'll say I might hurt him. That she's afraid of me now."

"You know she's not like that." Cassidy unfolded from the couch and headed into the half-kitchen, while the menu music repeated, over and over, the light playing over the panes of Elliot's face. Cassidy came back in a minute later with a highball glass holding a pair of emaciated ice cubes and his still-sealed scotch bottle, which he set before Stabler with distinct jarring thumps against the coffee table and an encouraging grin.

"You've always been the best father to those kids."

"Have I?" Cassidy watched Elliot stare at the bottle, his fingers rising a few inches, falling back down, rising again, a few times before he finally gave in and twisted the cap off, in one smooth movement, his fist around the neck. Elliot felt Cassidy's gaze on him. Cassidy wanted to see that one grin, that one particular grin, but it was probably four shots away.

He wondered if there would ever be a night when Elliot didn't have to get drunk anymore.

"She'll tell them." He tilted the bottle and missed enough that when he lifted the glass for his first sip, the reversed amber half-moon reflected green, red, white, from the strobing light of the television. Elliot curved one of the pieces of ice against his tongue, and Cassidy almost threw the game controller. "Maureen and Kathleen, and Elizabeth. God, all those fucking times. I barely know them now. I see them everywhere I go, now. I won't be able to check on them when they're sleeping, if I have a nightmare, if..."

Elliot poured another drink Cassidy looked across at him, and there was nothing he could say, not really. He was never reminded of Munch, never even missed Munch, until he said something smart in that space between the clink of ice and the burn of another sip and Elliot laughed that one way, the one that fucked like razors over his skin, and made him hate Elliot all over again. But he missed Munch now, because Munch had known how to build something beautiful and fragile and perfect out of entirely senseless words, and that had sometimes been enough, and when confronted with this kind of naked anguish, Cassidy had one response.

But that response wouldn't be reciprocated for another two drinks, at least.

"She said..." Elliot swirled the liquid in the glass and pressed his lips together, thin, and shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"It'll be better in the morning." Cassidy looked down at his hands. "You can stay here for as long as you need to."

"Thanks," Elliot said softly, even though they both knew that in the morning, no matter what, he'd go back home, and that home wasn't the one his wife had forbidden him.

Another drink and Elliot's head was lolled against the back of the couch, but he was still too quiet. When Cassidy looked over at him, Elliot roused himself only with supreme effort.

"You tired?"

"Starting to be," Cassidy admitted. "A little."

Stabler shrugged, carefully not looking at Cassidy. "Guess I'll take the couch."

"And disappoint me?"

Stabler gave that little half-smile at that, planting his palms on his knees, then pushing himself to his feet in a deceptively graceful movement, pulling his shirt off one-handed. A dark-haired woman on the television screen was chatting silently into her cell phone while an announcer promised that she would be available for whatever his heart desired.

Stabler took another shot before Cassidy flipped the television off and stood, waiting for Elliot to move, waiting for him to follow.

"What was it like, to fuck Olivia," Stabler said, and his voice was rough, his eyes gleaming.

Brian shook his head. "I don't remember," he lied softly.

\--

Elliot found a fresh casefile on his desk in the morning, a styrofoam cup of coffee just the way he liked it, and there across from him was Olivia, with her fuck-off red lipstick and a turtleneck sweater stretched tight under her jacket.

"Didn't expect to see you here so early."

Elliot shrugged. "Couldn't sleep," he said, and shifted in his chair. "Gone over the file yet?"

She nodded, still studying him with those deep dark eyes, but didn't say anything. No scotch, no accusation. Just a cup of coffee.

He wondered if she'd had to be drunk to fuck Cassidy, if she ever called him late at night on one of the rare nights they spent apart.

Olivia's eyes dropped.

Elliot wondered how many degrees of separation would ever be enough.

 


End file.
